Three conservation storytellers – Megan Hockin-Bennett, Andy Johnson, and Sam Rose Phillips – share their journeys as artists activists working to protect the coast. Through a curated selection of films and photography, workshop attendees will learn how the stories we create with media can be instruments of change for the waters around us. Bring your creative caps, as we’ll end this session with some time together to engage with the stories and waters just outside!
Selected school groups will participate in-person at CVAG.
Some of the day’s workshops will also be live-streamed for the public.
Thursday, May 12 | STORIES FOR IMPACT
- 9:30AM – 11:30AM – Workshop Session 1 –
LIVE-STREAMED 9:30 Am: Zoom Link – https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87568640282 - 1PM – 2PM – Workshop Session 2
Megan Hockin-Bennett is an environmental film maker based on Vancouver Island, Canada. Born in the UK, she first came to BC in 2011 to volunteer. She never left. For the last decade Megan has worked with Orcalab, a remote land based research station focused on the conservation, research and protection of the Northern Resident Killer Whale population. Her work has a strong focus on the human impacts on the lives of whales and has produced short documentaries shown in festivals around the world as well as being shown within the local community for direct action campaigns.
Andy Johnson is a professional musician, music educator and marine conservationist. Since 2017, he has been working with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society using drone and telephoto photography to shine a light on injustices that marine animals face including IUU fishing, salmon farms, and totuaba poaching. He is also the founder of a small non-profit organization called Redondo Beach Cleanup Team, specializing in beach cleanups, education, promoting local ocean friendly legislation, and marine animal rescue. He resides in the Pacific Northwest and Southern California.
Sam Rose Phillips is a photographer, filmmaker, and poet based in Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Territory, what is currently known as Ucluelet, British Columbia. She focuses her lens on human-wildlife stories and their cultural significance to coastal communities. Sam specializes in off-grid,
remote storytelling from land and on the water, spending the first 5 years of her career as a one-woman film crew. In the midst of documenting the thriving and collapsing of the natural world, Sam’s poetry kneels at the foot of photographed moments spent following wolf tracks and dreaming alongside humpbacks. She listens closely for Earth’s guidance on how to exist in these times. Framing narratives alongside collectives like Conservancy Hornby Island, Sea Shepherd, Stand, North Coast Cetacean Society, Clayoquot Action, and Cetus Research & Conservation Society, has instilled in her a dedication to integrating truth and hope into the
same conversations. Her words, images, and films are published by Save Our Seas Magazine, Salty at Heart Journal, CBC’s The Wild Canadian Year, and Outdoor Photography Magazine. She is currently directing a documentary about coexisting with wildlife.
This event is part of the RETURN TO WATER FESTIVAL – a series of arts-based events and presentations that bring the community together to explore issues related to perceptions of water, use of water, the human relationship to water, the climate’s effect on water, and the concept of water as a “living entity”. From May 12 – 14, 2022, daily events will instigate interdisciplinary and cross-cultural considerations of water and its significance through visual art, photography, video, sound, interactive media, texts, performance, music, dance, and song.